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Official Website

Hours

Nearby Subway Stops

6 at 96th St.

Prices

$6-$12

Payment Methods

American Express, MasterCard, Visa

Special Features

Bar Scene

Dine at the Bar

Notable Chef

Take-Out

Alcohol

Beer and Wine Only

Reservations

Not Accepted

Profile

Unless the Underground Gourmet is experiencing a medical or cooking emergency and
speeding posthaste to Mount Sinai hospital or Kitchen Arts & Letters (the
great cookbook shop), we find little need to venture to the East Nineties
intersection of Carnegie Hill and East Harlem. To those exigencies of life, we
can now add a third: a bite to eat at Earl’s Beer & Cheese, a neighborhood
bar so discreetly located some of its closest neighbors barely know it’s there.
The young crowd is ebullient but civilized (and mercifully free of
frat-house yahoos), good tunes are played at conversation-friendly decibel
levels, and the bar-food menu never fails to surprise or satisfy. Having said
that, culinary pilgrims should note that the space is tight and it’s decidedly
a bar rather than a restaurant. You are kindly asked to order from the
bartender, and depending on the night and the hour, if you’re not lucky enough
to wriggle into an inside seat at the single communal table (fashioned from a
slab of an old bowling alley, no less), you might have to scarf your snack
standing along a narrow ledge, all the while being gently and apologetically
jostled by an off-duty Mount Sinai resident, or a bespectacled beer geek
singing the praises of the frequently-changing tap selection. (There’s also a
rotating roster of craft cans with a few nostalgic quirks thrown in for fun.)

Still, despite the place’s super-­convivial vibe and tasty beer, the Underground
Gourmet is always most motivated by the victuals, and Earl’s Beer & Cheese
had us at the Calabro-mozzarella grilled cheese on a Thomas’ English muffin.
The crazy-­genius idea behind this concoction is the inclusion of dill-pickle
slices, potato chips, and a hearty slathering of miso mayo smooshed into the
sandwich. It sounds horribly wrong, but tastes incredibly right. Nearly as
delicious is another seemingly loony-bin invention featuring New York State
Cheddar melted over braised pork belly with kimchee and a fried egg on
griddle-toasted sourdough. Man, is it good. Both ­sandwiches are the inspired
work of chef Corey Cova, who comes to Earl’s from earlier stints at Michael
Symon’s Lolita, Morimoto, and, perhaps most tellingly, Momofuku Ssäm Bar, whose
presence is felt in the hearty reliance on pork and eggs and the canny
integration of Asian flavors on an otherwise all-American comfort-food menu.
But cheese is still the thing, and it is everywhere: blended with Sriracha into
an outrageously tasty beer-cheese spread or combined with shredded chicken in a
mug of tangy mac and cheese. (The beer cheese also makes an appearance in
“Earl’s Torpedo,” where it’s smeared in a potato hot dog bun along with blue cheese, buffalo chicken, and lettuce.) Beyond a bowl of mildly spiced tomato
soup—no, wait, that has cream in it—the lactose-intolerant have little recourse.
Which, you have to admit, is just as it should be at a place called Earl’s Beer
& Cheese, an excellent ambassador for all things hoppy, malty, and dairy,
in a neighborhood where those pickings are particularly slim. — Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite